BMW Group has partnered with French AI startup Mistral AI to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in crash simulation.
The German carmaker said the collaboration is aimed at improving “quality, accuracy and speed” in complex engineering tasks.
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It described the agreement as a first step towards using domain-specific AI more widely in vehicle development and across the broader BMW Group value chain.
The auto giant added the scale of its crash simulation work makes specialised AI increasingly relevant.
BMW Group CIO and senior vice president Dr. Franz Decker said: “For the BMW Group, the use of industrial data is a key factor in translating artificial intelligence into value creation. By combining our engineering datasets with Mistral AI’s model training capabilities, we are building specialized AI which supports complex development tasks.”
BMW runs thousands of virtual crash simulations each week, generating large volumes of engineering data. Over time, this has created a historical dataset of more than one petabyte of crash simulation data, according to the company.
BMW said this data provides detailed insight into vehicle structures and material behaviour, giving it a foundation for training an industrial AI model.
To support that effort, the group is focusing on so-called Large Industry Models, or LIMs. These are AI systems trained on industry-specific engineering and simulation data from vehicle development and safety testing.
BMW said LIMs differ from general-purpose AI systems because they build domain-specific knowledge directly into the model.
The company added that this approach requires not only industrial data, but also deep domain expertise and technical environments that allow AI systems to learn from BMW’s development processes.
Marjorie Janiewicz, the chief revenue officer of Mistral AI, said: “As Industrial AI becomes the new frontier for AI, we are proud to partner with the BMW Group. “This collaboration shows how industry specific AI models can help solve complex engineering challenges such as crash simulation.”
